the difference between you and I is that I actually did believe and so the loss for me and the corresponding void is much more profound — dazed

Understood. But ethical problemata (rather than "shock") that's followed from your "loss of religion" has still followed for me (& other mostly thinking persons) as well.

Most of our current ethical framework at the macro level in the western world is in fact ultimately linked to a judaeo christian model of our existence, take that away and it's all fair game, and I think that in fact it's self interest that will ultimately dictate the directions each of us pursue in that game. — dazed

This is why I followed up my first post with a second brief sketch on (the) epochal transition from 'philosophies of wonder' (re: disenchanting the world in order to comprehend its apparent enchantedness) to 'philosophies of despair' (re: the various failures to reenchant our disenchanted world) and break down of latter differentiating 'nihilism' as a symptom of decadence (i.e. "self-interest for self-interest's sake" - über alles!) from despair. An important aside, in my opinion, which more directly addresses the thread topic question & your OP than my initial brieezy "just do it" suggestion.

As you point out, dazed, "our current ethical framework at the macro level in the western world is in fact ultimately linked to a judaeo christian model" which every non-theist, regardless of provenance, must deal - struggle - with in order to seek out and adopt an alternative "ethical framework" despite, yet complementary to, "the macro level"; this predicament is not unique to those who've "lost their religion" and feel adrift in the viccissitudes of, as you put it, "the micro". Consider e.g  the (non-theist) existentialisms of Jaspers, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Ortega y Gassett, de Unamuno, Abbagnano, Fanon, Kaufmann, ... & Merleau-Ponty.

So long as your unease remains at the level of 'worrying about nihilism', you're merely a decadent - for nihilism is just a superficial concern as I point out in my second post. There are a library of non-theistic / post-JCI ethical frameworks one can window shop and try on for size and return for exchange of another ethics (though, sorry, no money back guarantees) until one finds a better or optimal fit for one's life. No problem really if all you want, all you're looking for, is a Blue Pill and an end to all - unmotivated ennui - 'worries'. Philosophy, however, dispenses only Red Pills to those looking for aporetics "more profound" than self-help nostrums and (psycho)therapies for flagging self-esteem. The likes of Oprah, Jordan Petersen, Marianne Williamson, Tony Robbins & Deepok Chopra pimp that Blue Pill woo all day every day, and they're easy to get because you can't miss 'em ... :victory:

* * * update (since this plane didn't crash) * * *

Sometimes I will then again I think I won't
Sometimes I will then again I think I won't
Sometimes I do then again I think I don't

Well I looked at my watch, it was 10:05
Man, I didn't know if I was dead or alive

Well I looked at my watch, it was 10:28
I gotta get my kicks before it gets too late

Well I looked at my watch and it was time to go
The band leader said " We ain't playing no more" — The Philosopher-Poet of Rock-N-Roll

:cool:

(Chuck) "You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame."

(Bob) "What?"

(Chuck) "Yeah, see, they die of shame. 'What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?' And so they sit there and they -- die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives."

(Bob) "And what is that, Charles?"

(Chuck) "Thinking."

[The Edge, 1997]

:smirk:

I am wondering if others who have lost their religion have found a path out of this sense of loss and underlying chaos and would care to share. — dazed

My evolution was slow and gradual : from Protestant Fundamentalism, to uncertain Agnosticism, to Scientific explorer, to Philosophical thinker, etc. But I could never accept the Atheist worldview, which has no satisfactory explanation for the perennial religious questions : Where did we come from? Why are we here? What's the meaning of life? and so on.

So, I began to develop my own personal worldview, based on a> cutting-edge science, b> state-of-the-art philosophy, and c> a select summary of the world's religious wisdom. This customized philosophy of life is not a guarantee of absolute truth, but it gives me a stable foundation of relative truths, and it seems to be a reasonable guide to living in an imperfect world surrounded by mysteries. It avoids the extremes of Optimism and Pessimism, by adopting a moderate attitude of Pragmatism.

I call my worldview Enformationism, because it is an update of ancient Materialism and Spiritualism, with the Quantum Age understanding that Information is more essential to reality than Matter or Energy. As a religious philosophy, it can be labeled : PanEnDeism : the assumption that everything is contained within the eternal-infinite Mind of what I call G*D, with no historical prejudices or anthro-morphic presumptions. Like the Codex of Pfhorest, this serves as my framework for morality and for meaning. Perhaps you can also construct your own path out of confusion and nihilism. :smile:


Enformationism definition : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

PanEnDeism definition : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html

Enformationism thesis : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/

From my lips to goober's goober! As if to order - no waiting, curbside delivery here @ TPF - homebrewed Blue Pill woo courtesy of :zip:

< update 9h later >

FWIW : Enformationism has some similarities to New Age worldviews, but it specifically denies any mind-over-matter magic and divine-intervention miracles. — Gnomon

WOOsy! :victory:

TL;DW for the Tolstoy vid: the most important time is now, the most important person is the one you're with right now, and the most important action is doing right by that person. — Pfhorrest

But what if you're with more than one person and they have conflicting needs?

But what if you're with more than one person and they have conflicting needs? — bert1

Ask Tolstoy.

But what if you're with more than one person and they have conflicting needs? — bert1

@god must be atheist already covered this as far as Tolstoy is concerned (I was just summarizing the video for those who don't want to watch it), but as far as I'm concerned, "needs" as I would construe them technically cannot conflict, in the same way that observations of the world technically cannot conflict. They can suggest interpretations about what is or ought to be that conflict, but what actually is must account for all observations, even if it's a really difficult creative task to figure out how to do that, and what actually ought to be must account for all needs, even if it's a really difficult creative task to figure out how to do that.

(Consider the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each one feels a different thing and interprets that as meaning there's a different object, and while all three of those interpretations cannot be simultaneously true, the actual reality is nevertheless compatible with the different things each of them feels to prompt those interpretations. Analogously, people's different feelings may prompt them to want different states of affairs, and those states of affairs may be incompatible, but what's actually a moral state of affairs will nevertheless account for everyone's different feelings, even if it means nobody gets any of the states of affairs that those feelings prompted them to want).

I don't think my comment warranted any kind of answer, let alone a considered one, so thanks for that.

Thank you for the opportunity, that's exactly what I'm here for. :)

From my lips to goober's goober! As if to order - no waiting, curbside delivery here TPF - homebrewed Blue Pill woo courtesy of :zip: — 180 Proof

THE RED PILL MEME

If you're a New Ager who,
is looking for woo,
Then Enformationism
is not for you.

The choice of pills red or blue
have nothing to do,
but allow you to change your
attitude.

If it's magic you pursue,
look inside of you,
where miracles are seen in
inner view.

The outer world you construe
can only be moved
by machine and muscle, not by
psychetude*.

And G*D only helps those who
help themselves to
what they desire and need by
homebrew.

Note : Sorry for the ill-formed poor-etry. Phew! I was running out of "woo" rhymes. :cool:

* Psychetude : http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2006/03/waves-of-psychetude.html

FWIW : Enformationism has some similarities to New Age worldviews, but it specifically denies any mind-over-matter magic and divine-intervention miracles.

I can relate to much of your experience - I was also raised catholic and journeyed through nihilism to begin to formulate a philosophy that better reflected how I saw reality - interestingly similar in many ways to the perspectives of both @Gnomon and @Pfhorrest.

I’ve never quite declared myself to be ‘atheist’ - but I’m not a theist anymore, either. Like @Wayfarer, I still see value in the mythology of religion, as long as it’s recognised as such, and like @Bitter Crank I relate to the idea that we share a basic sense of what we should and shouldn’t be doing with most religions, regardless of whether or not we believe in things like the resurrection or any supernatural being.

I think in many ways it’s a matter of not being afraid of the ‘not knowing’. The comfort I took from Catholicism was more about a dependence on claims of certainty and authority that I’ve since recognised to be false. Part of nihilism is recognising that there IS no certainty or authority - we are all in the same boat here, although some will go to great lengths to conceal it from themselves and others. They’re allowing fear to guide them, instead of increasing awareness, connection and collaboration. When we embrace nihilism, I think we learn to face the reality that everyone is still trying to figure all of this out, and then learn to draw from each other’s experiences not only the courage to explore, but also the missing information that will help us to more accurately map those aspects of reality that are less objectively certain - in particular what is valuable and what it all means. It’s not something you can figure out by avoiding the dark, but nor is it helpful to shrug the shoulders and remain in the dark, as @180 Proof warns.

I think you can at least take comfort in the knowledge that some of us have been roughly where you are now, and eventually reached a level of confidence in navigating a world without certainty or authority beyond what nihilism appears to offer at first glance. It’s not so scary once you get used to it. I would recommend Pfhorrest’s approach to ethics - as complicated as it sounds, I find it make sense within my own perspective of increasing awareness, connection and collaboration...

Part of nihilism is recognising that there IS no certainty or authority — Possibility

This is not directed at, toward, or about you. I'm talking about the standard model of juvenile nihilist.

The doctrine of an extreme Russian revolutionary party c. 1900 found nothing to approve of in the established social order. Given how badly Romanov rule sucked, that is probably the very model of political rationality. That is a far cry from the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless. In philosophy, it means extreme skepticism; maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence. (Not only does life suck, it isn't even real. Fuck!)

One wonders where the young nihilist (or an old one, for that matter) gets the chutzpa to stand up and declare "It's all meaningless!" "There is no authority -- nobody knows anything," "Meaning is completely arbitrary -- life sucks!" I have a picture in my mind of a group of raging adult nihilists throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of Macy's, Forever 21 or -- god forbid -- the Apple Store: rolling around on the floor, kicking, screaming, cursing, and turning red in the face. Eventually they get up, feel much better, and go have cappuccinos at Starbucks.

The thing is, nihilism is self negating. If everything is meaningless, if there is no authority, life is a valueless and dismal swamp, if there is no certainty... then all that includes the nihilist. The nihilist is meaningless, without authority, a swamp creature, altogether lacking certainty. He or she should shut the fuck up before they even open their mouths.

Lots of people fleeing the church feel like they need a bath (something that doesn't involve getting washed in the blood of the lamb). Take a bath, but don't go down the drain with the bath water.

in the abstract, no I have no real inclination or intuition about whether it is wrong, I can and would only face this question if it presented itself to me in the micro.

What do you want your actions (your meaning and your purpose) to matter to? You? Your partner and family? The human species? Then do things for them and let that be your purpose and meaning. — Harry Hindu

Yes this is pretty much my approach, I rely on my positive emotions and try to be good to those I care about. But my deeper engagement with life is still lacking, it just all seems like a big mess that no one has any really clue about.

Lots of people fleeing the church feel like they need a bath (something that doesn't involve getting washed in the blood of the lamb). Take a bath, but don't go down the drain with the bath water. — Bitter Crank

I agree with you. The point of nihilism, in my view, is to emerge on the other side of it without baggage - not to stay there.

No authority and no certainty doesn’t add up to no meaning in my book - it’s just a discarding of what we thought we knew, a shedding of skin. And it’s not something anyone should be standing up to declare - that goes against the idea of ‘no authority’, doesn’t it?

in the abstract, no I have no real inclination or intuition about whether it is wrong, I can and would only face this question if it presented itself to me in the micro. — dazed

Sure, but when you think about this stuff, part of intuiting how you feel about it is doing thought experiments. That includes thinking of various personal, "micro" scenarios and trying to figure out how you'd feel about each. Are your feelings consistent? What's making the difference in each scenario? Etc.

I'm not saying that you're going to realize your dispositions about it in two minutes. You have to do "hard thinking" about it. That takes some time and some brain power.

Yes this is pretty much my approach, I rely on my positive emotions and try to be good to those I care about. But my deeper engagement with life is still lacking, it just all seems like a big mess that no one has any really clue about. — dazed

What would a "deeper engagement with life" mean? How is being good to those your care about, and therefore creating your purpose with them, not a deeper engagement with life?

When we embrace nihilism, I think we learn to face the reality that everyone is still trying to figure all of this out, and then learn to draw from each other’s experiences not only the courage to explore, but also the missing information that will help us to more accurately map those aspects of reality that are less objectively certain - in particular what is valuable and what it all means. — Possibility

Your description sounds more like positive Stoicism than negative Nihilism. Rather than rejecting reality, Stoicism embraces the world, warts and all. The focus is on developing personal virtue instead of retreating into "bah-humbug" cynicism. :smile:

hat would a "deeper engagement with life" mean? How is being good to those your care about, and therefore creating your purpose with them, not a deeper engagement with life? — Harry Hindu

An even deeper engagement would involve caring about causes, positive societal change, the greater good. I used to be engaged and care about trying to better things (when I was a theist). Now I have no interest in those things because I can't define what positive or good would really mean on a macro scale. I just stick to the micro where it is usually more easy to define what is good for those I actually interact with.

There are still causes you can care about and support without having to decide the big controversial issues, and some of them can be the most important kind. Causes that just help individual people one by one in an uncontroversial way. Like Food Not Bombs, which just feed hungry people in parks.

Philosophy, however, dispenses only Red Pills to those looking for aporetics "more profound" than self-help nostrums and (psycho)therapies for flagging self-esteem. — 180 Proof

I like this, but I'd emphasize that perhaps philosophy (the good stuff) is simply a more profound self-help nostrum. The organism grasps for orientation and status.

:ok:

When we embrace nihilism, I think we learn to face the reality that everyone is still trying to figure all of this out, and then learn to draw from each other’s experiences not only the courage to explore, but also the missing information that will help us to more accurately map those aspects of reality that are less objectively certain - in particular what is valuable and what it all means.
— Possibility
Your description sounds more like positive Stoicism than negative Nihilism. Rather than rejecting reality, Stoicism embraces the world, warts and all. The focus is on developing personal virtue instead of retreating into "bah-humbug" cynicism. :smile: — Gnomon

When I continued with ‘...and then...’, I was referring to emerging out the other side...Nihilism for me was useful in breaking down constructs and false assumptions, but not where I wanted to stay.

It's helpful to note, then, that [Nietzsche] believed we could--at a terrible price--eventually work through nihilism. If we survived the process of destroying all interpretations of the world, we could then perhaps discover the correct course for humankind. — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Nihilism can be rejecting reality, sure - but it can also be rejecting and being sceptical of any particular interpretation of reality as truth. Stoicism doesn’t necessarily allow for the same level of skepticism, but some of their approach may be seen as a helpful path out of nihilism, I suppose.

An even deeper engagement would involve caring about causes, positive societal change, the greater good. I used to be engaged and care about trying to better things (when I was a theist). Now I have no interest in those things because I can't define what positive or good would really mean on a macro scale. I just stick to the micro where it is usually more easy to define what is good for those I actually interact with. — dazed

That's because what is positive and good is subjective. You can't define what is positive or good on macro scale because there is no such thing.

So, it seems to me that your continued confusion is the result in believing in things that don't exist.

I am always somewhat removed from life, since reality is such an empty stark place in comparison the reality I believed in for the first 20 years of my life. — dazed

In 66 years I have not found a way around it. If you are not one of those people who can't lull or distract themselves from what you understand as a fundamental truth, you live with it. At times throughout my life, it's produced crises when everything seemed pretty absurd and meaningless. I have weathered them.

I derive intense pleasure from Nature, and I believe in Nature's ability to triumph over human destruction of the planet. I follow the Torah's code of ethics as far as my relationships with other humans goes, but I don't believe in a diety or intelligent design, unless that's the same as physics..

:up:

well I appreciate the candidacy. I expect my life will take a similar path. But I feel like perhaps just accepting that is what is and not lamenting the loss is the lesson to learn.

I too enjoy being in nature, just being conscious in its beauty.

That's because what is positive and good is subjective. You can't define what is positive or good on macro scale because there is no such thing.

So, it seems to me that your continued confusion is the result in believing in things that don't exist. — Harry Hindu

right so what point is therein in discussing the macro? It's akin to a discussion about whether a person is attractive or not. There's not much utility in reasoned discussion about that. So just as I avoid such discussions so I avoid the macro normative discussions. Hence the lesser engagement in life.

right so what point is therein in discussing the macro? It's akin to a discussion about whether a person is attractive or not. There's not much utility in reasoned discussion about that. So just as I avoid such discussions so I avoid the macro normative discussions. Hence the lesser engagement in life. — dazed

You and I seem to have different views of what entails the "macro". I typically avoid discussions involving morals/values precisely because values are subjective. What reason would you have to talk about what is subjective as if it were objective? That is a category error. The lesser engagement would be to engage in discussions that are meaningless.

The macro for me is simply what science explores - the universe, the brain, etc.. Those topics are worth discussing because we all exist in the same universe and we all have brains (most of us I think).

Nihilism can be rejecting reality, sure - but it can also be rejecting and being sceptical of any particular interpretation of reality as truth. Stoicism doesn’t necessarily allow for the same level of skepticism, but some of their approach may be seen as a helpful path out of nihilism, I suppose. — Possibility

A healthy dose of skepticism is necessary for those who want to think for themselves rather than be led by the nose via Faith. But when it becomes the core principle of your life, Skepticism tends to deteriorate into unhealthy sneering Cynicism (in the modern sense of contemptuous, pessimistic, and generally distrustful of people's motives).

Another alternative to negative Nihilism is Existentialism*1. It is especially appropriate for Dazed's situation, because it is intended to be a rational response to "losing one's faith" -- that, despite the ups & downs of life, the world is in the firm control of a loving God. When they lose that childlike faith in a heavenly father, many people become despondent, because they have been taught to distrust their own reason and emotional resources. So, they have to grow-up and learn to take responsibility for themselves as moral agents.

As a Christian, I didn't understand Existentialism. It seemed to be a pessimistic worldview. But I now know that it is, if not exactly optimistic, positive and realistic. It accepts that God does not really intervene in the world on behalf of the faithful. And that there may be no heavenly hereafter. What we see instead is that bad things happen to good people, and all too often bad people prosper on the backs of the good. But that's no reason to give-up moral behavior. Yes, Nature is red in tooth and claw, and life lives upon life (lions eat little lambs). Yes, the world is not ideal, in the sense that my personal interests are also God's interests. So, those who are "woke" to the fact that God is not caring for us as individuals, then we have to learn to look-out for our own interests -- while respecting the interests of others, of course. It's an independent mature worldview, as opposed to the dependent naive attitude of those who feel lost without God.

My current worldview however, has developed beyond Stoic Existentialism, because I now believe that the world is evolving in a positive direction*2, and that I have personal control over my own character and attitude. So, I can have a reasonably happy life, despite the exigencies of impartial reality*3. Ironically, the theory of Evolution, despised by many religious believers, reveals that natural processes are both Random (Fatalistic) and Orderly (Selection). Which means that moral agents have the power to choose (Will) their own path through the tangled jungle of the amoral world. Some existentialists actually believed in God (Kierkegaard), but only in an abstract sense. And I have replaced the perplexing bible-god with a more scientifically plausible First Cause (G*D)*4. So, that's my path out of Nihilism and Despair.


*1 Existentialism : a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.

*2 Intelligent Evolution : http://gnomon.enformationism.info/Essays/Intelligent%20Evolution%20Essay_Prego_120106.pdf

*3 Impartial Reality : the real world is fair & balanced (Yin/Yang) in the sense that it treats all things randomly, and is "no respecter of persons".

*4 G*D : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

Some folks replace God with History and religion with politics.

Freedom is itself its own object of attainment and the sole purpose of Spirit. It is the ultimate purpose toward which all world history has continually aimed. To this end all the sacrifices have been offered on the vast altar of the earth throughout the long lapse of ages. Freedom alone is the purpose which realizes and fulfills itself, the only enduring pole in the change of events and conditions, the only truly efficient principle that pervades the whole. This final aim is God’s purpose with the world. But God is the absolutely perfect Being and can, therefore, will nothing but Himself, His own will. The nature of His own will, His own nature, is what we here call the Idea of freedom. Thus we translate the language of religion into that of philosophy. — Hegel

Another popular substitute for religion is irony/cynicism/absurd-ism.

Hitherto men have constantly made up for themselves false conceptions about themselves, about what they are and what they ought to be. They have arranged their relationships according to their ideas of God, of normal man, etc. The phantoms of their brains have got out of their hands. They, the creators, have bowed down before their creations. Let us liberate them from the chimeras, the ideas, dogmas, imaginary beings under the yoke of which they are pining away. Let us revolt against the rule of thoughts. Let us teach men, says one, to exchange these imaginations for thoughts which correspond to the essence of man; says the second, to take up a critical attitude to them; says the third, to knock them out of their heads; and -- existing reality will collapse.

These innocent and childlike fancies are the kernel of the modern Young-Hegelian philosophy, which not only is received by the German public with horror and awe, but is announced by our philosophic heroes with the solemn consciousness of its cataclysmic dangerousness and criminal ruthlessness. The first volume of the present publication has the aim of uncloaking these sheep, who take themselves and are taken for wolves; of showing how their bleating merely imitates in a philosophic form the conceptions of the German middle class; how the boasting of these philosophic commentators only mirrors the wretchedness of the real conditions in Germany. It is its aim to debunk and discredit the philosophic struggle with the shadows of reality, which appeals to the dreamy and muddled German nation. — Marx

An arguably more interesting position is a stereoscopic fusion. Indeed criticism has often taken a Left-Hegelian form. 'If minds are freed, then all the messy real world stuff will clear up on its own.'

In 66 years I have not found a way around it. If you are not one of those people who can't lull or distract themselves from what you understand as a fundamental truth, you live with it. At times throughout my life, it's produced crises when everything seemed pretty absurd and meaningless. I have weathered them.

I derive intense pleasure from Nature, and I believe in Nature's ability to triumph over human destruction of the planet. I follow the Torah's code of ethics as far as my relationships with other humans goes, but I don't believe in a diety or intelligent design, unless that's the same as physics.. — uncanni

Sad Socrates ("red pill" @dazed in a prior post) + Deus, sive Natura(?) + "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and study." ~Hillel the Elder + ...

:flower: :death:

If I understand your words rightly, uncanni, your 'summa' speaks to me as well.